The spread of the Polynesians and Micronesians into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean is one of the great dramas of human history. Beginning over 3,000 years ago, people began to spill out of the island chains of Indonesia, Melanesia and the Philippines into the scattered atolls and volcanic islands of the Pacific Ocean. By about 1000AD, most of the habitable islands of the world's greatest ocean supported thriving populations. The speed and daring of this expansion was incredible. Humans had touched almost every speck in the Pacific, sailing on double-hulled canoes across trackless expanses in search of new homes. In every sense, this was one of the most extraordinary migrations in human history.

The last places to be reached were in the southwest Pacific, and in the far eastern Pacific. Settlers reached all the way to Easter Island, 2300 miles from the coast of South America, by about 700AD. In the southwest Pacific, voyaging canoes reached New Zealand around 1250AD, and the remote, cool and windy archipelago of the Chatham Islands around 1300AD (New Zealand was in fact the last major land mass on the planet to be settled by humans - Iceland was settled about 800AD, and Madagascar some hundreds of years earlier.) After New Zealand, the Pacific was full, and long-range voyaging began to decline quite rapidly.

A few habitable Pacific islands were never found until Europeans entered the ocean - they rank as amongst the last places on earth discovered by humans. These include the Galapagos Islands, the Revillagigedos Archipelago, and the Juan Fernandez Islands off the coast of South America; Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand; and Midway Island, northwest of Hawaii. They are some of the few places on the planet which have never had an "indigenous" population.

Diffusion of human settlement across time and space in the Pacific

However, there are also some islands in the Pacific that were once settled by prehistoric people, then abandoned. These have been called the "mystery islands" by anthropologists, because there are often very few clues about what happened to their people. Some of the "mystery islands" include Necker and Nihoa Islands, northwest of Hawaii; Walpole, near New Caledonia; Pitcairn and Henderson in the eastern Pacific; Palmerston and Suwarrow in the Cook Islands; the Bonin Islands, 600 miles south of Japan; and several of the Phoenix and Line Islands in the central Pacific. Additionally, there are some famous "mystery islands" off the Australian coast, notably Kangaroo Island near Adelaide, and the islands of Bass Strait between Tasmania and Victoria. For further information on the Australian off-shore islands, see Offshore Islands & Maritime Explorations in Australian Prehistory by Sandra Bowdler.

Location of the Pacific's Mystery Islands (from Irwin)

Some of the "mystery islands" were quite habitable, and could have sustained some level of prehistoric population; but when discovered by Europeans, they were unpopulated. We do not definitively know why this was so. Perhaps it was climate or sea level change, environmental overload, collapse of the food supply, internal conflict, the psychological trauma of severe isolation, or most likely an unfortunate combination of all these factors. Something drove these people to extinction, or to take their chances once again on the vast Pacific. This is an enduring and fascinating puzzle for which there are no ready answers.

However, as we understand more about prehistoric pressures on island ecosystems, we are getting a clearer perspective. Polynesian populations tended to peak within several generations of island settlement, then declined as their environments deteriorated. In some island ecosystems (such as Easter Island) there is evidence of disastrous ecological collapse. Gardening and fishing were uncertain strategies. Protein supply was always a problem on smaller islands, and most larger land animals were quickly eaten to extinction. Trade networks broke down, and interisland travel declined. Without trade and emigration, populations became stranded, resources were exhausted, warfare and violence erupted, and the population fell catastophically. There is no clear evidence that this happened on the "mystery" islands, but it is clear that to sustain a population on a small island in profound isolation is extremely difficult.

This bibliography gathers together the available research on three of these "mystery" island groups - Norfolk Island, the Kermadec Islands, and the Auckland Islands. These islands are amongst the most remote on earth, but both were definitely settled at some point by prehistoric Polynesian seafarers. However, when "rediscovered" by Europeans in the late 18th century, they were utterly abandoned. The references below are primarily the work of archaeologists, who have teased out the fragmentary and tantalizing evidence for these vanished visitors.

"In the Pacific there are two main groups of so-called mystery islands, i.e. islands that were settled and then abandoned (or their populations died out) in prehistory. One consists of low coral islands in the equatorial zone and the other of high basaltic islands in the subtropical zone. Consideration of environmental and archaeological evidence about the latter suggests that they lay in a relatively impoverished zone of faunal resources (marine mammals, seabirds, inshore fish and invertebrates) and were also marginal to the full deployment of tropical agriculture. It is argued that vulnerability to significant faunal depletion by over-exploitation, without the ability to compensate by agricultural production provides an explanation of settlement discontinuation in the subtropical islands and potentially for the mystery islands as a whole."

"When Captain Cook dropped anchor at Norfolk Island in 1774, nobody was home. Yet when the island's penal colony was established in 1788, puzzled residents discovered stone tools on the beaches and cultivated bananas in the forest. Somebody had been there. But who? Sketchy archaeological evidence has long pointed to either Melanesian people from nearby New Caledonia, or to Polynesians from eastern Pacific islands. But which? At last, archaeologists have the answer. The first settlers arrived between 400 and 800 years ago from New Zealand, with a stop-over at the Kermadec Islands..."

"More than 170 years before Captain James Cook arrived in the South Pacific a small community of Polynesians vanished from their Norfolk Island home - killed by disease, struck by disaster or murdered when they escaped to Australia. They had lived on the island for as long as 400 years, from 1200 to 1600, and while their fate will never be known, a team of archaeologists has for the first time uncovered evidence of their village and a minute glimpse into their daily life."

The Kermadec Archipelago lies about 600 mi. northeast of Auckland, halfway between New Zealand and Tonga. The land area is about the same as Norfolk, at 13 sq. miles, but the islands are less habitable. The largest island, Raoul, covers 11.2 sq. miles, and rises to 1700 feet at Mt. Moumoukai. There are smaller islands and islets in the archipelago, including Curtis, Macaulay, and L'Esperance. The islands are prone to volcanic activity and earthquakes, which may have been a factor in their early settlement history.

Only Raoul is habitable - heavily wooded and fertile, with 57" of rain a year. Nikau palm, pohutukawa, and karaka forests flourish. There are small lakes and lagoons, and extensive tropical/temperate coastal marine ecosystems with corals but no coral reefs. In prehistoric times the environment could have supported a resident population, although the ecological integrity of the islands has deteriorated since European discovery. They are now heavily protected by the New Zealand government, and the environment is being gradually restored. Currently, the only inhabitants are scientists and weather station personnel.

Kermadec Bibliography

Anderson, Atholl J.
"The Archaeology of Raoul Island (Kermadecs) and its Place in the Settlement History of Polynesia." Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 15 (1980): 131-141. Print.

Wright, A. E., ed.The Offshore Islands of Northern New Zealand: Proceedings of a Symposium Convened by the Offshore Islands Research Group in Auckland, 10-13 May, 1983. Wellington: Department of Lands and Survey, 1986. Print.

Lord Howe Island lies in the Tasman Sea, 440 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia. The island is about 7 sq. miles, and has an excellent climate and a reef system. It was discovered in 1788 by a British ship. It appears that before that moment, no human had laid eyes on Lord Howe, so it remains one of the unique places on the planet that never had an indigenous population. Some archaeological work has been carried out to test the hypothesis that Lord Howe was truly undiscovered, and so far there has been no evidence of a prehistoric population. Even for the intrepid Polynesians, Lord Howe would have been an incredible voyaging achievement, and it appears unlikely that Australian aboriginals ever had the sailing technology to venture that far from the coast. However, an interesting hypothesis is that Lord Howe was struck by a mega-tsunami caused by collision with an extraterrestrial object. This cataclysm (in 1500AD) could have obliterated any settlement on the island.

"A survey of unconsolidated sediments overlying Pleistocene calcarenites and Tertiary basalts on Lord Howe Island was undertaken in 1996 in order to test the hypothesis that human settlement had not occurred before the European era, beginning in AD 1788. The results, largely from augering in lowland areas suitable for settlement, showed almost no sign of human occupation, and two radiocarbon dates on charcoal from sand-dune deposits are both modern."

The Auckland Islands are considerably different than Norfolk and the Kermadecs. They are a subantarctic archipelago, with a harsh, cold, windy climate, situated about 300 miles south of the South Island of New Zealand. Incredibly, evidence is emerging that prehistoric Polynesians voyaged to these islands on the edge of the Antarctic; a truly astounding feat of seamanship and endurance. Archaeologists are still uncovering the tenuous evidence for these most far-flung of the Polynesian discoverers, and as yet we know little about their settlement, which took place in the 13th and 14th centuries. There is one archaeological site at Sandy Bay on Enderby Island, a small island to the north of the main Auckland Island. Enderby has the best habitat of the archipelago, and is relatively sheltered from the prevailing winds. There is also easy access to nearby seal colonies.

Various archaeological relics had been collected from Sandy Bay over the years, but excavations in the late 1990s by Atholl Anderson finally proved that the site had been occupied 600-700 years ago. This is around the same period that Archaic Maori were settling in the South Island of New Zealand.

In the 19th century, during historic times, Polynesians once again settled in the Aucklands for about 20 years, this time arriving by European sailing ship. These were Taranaki Maoris from the Chatham Islands, accompanied by their Moriori slaves. This settlement was not successful, and the survivors were evacuated back to the South Island in the 1850s.

Rakiura is the Maori name for Stewart Island, which probably served as a launching point for voyaging to the Auckland archipelago. Maori settlement on Rakiura was extensive. The Snares are a small forested group of islets 64 miles south of Rakiura which show evidence of occasional visits. An archaic adze has been discovered there. One of the larger islands was known to the Maoris as Te Taniwha ("The Dragon").

Campbell Island and Bounty Island are even more remote sub-Antarctic Islands well south of New Zealand that have yet to reveal evidence of Polynesian settlement. There is tantalizing evidence of a Polynesian visit to the Antipodes Islands - a fragment of Polynesian pottery now in the Te Papa Museum in Wellington.

Anderson, Atholl J., and Gerard R. O'Regan.
"To the Final Shore: Prehistoric Colonisation of the Subantarctic Islands in South Polynesia." Australian Archaeologist: Collected Papers in Honour of Jim Allen. Canberra: Australian National University, 2000. 440-454. Print.

Matisoo-Smith, Elizabeth, et al.
"The Origins of the Feral Pigs on the Auckland Islands." Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 33 (2003): 561-569. Print.

McNab, R.Murihiku and the Southern Islands: A History of the West Coast Sounds, Foveaux Strait, Stewart Island, The Snares, Bounty, Antipodes, Auckland, Campbell and Macquarie Islands from 1770 to 1829. Auckland: Wilson and Horton, 1970. Print.